Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Profile of Professor Tobias
- List of participants
- Foreword
- Address
- Keynote address
- Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
- The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
- Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
- Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
- Tools and brains: which came first?
- Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
- Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
- Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
- The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
- Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
- Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
- Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
- Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
- The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
- Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins 276
- An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
- From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
- New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
- Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
- Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson's Poort at Klasies River
- Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
- Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
- From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
- Chronology of the Howieson's Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
- Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
- Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
- Personal names index
- Subject index
Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Profile of Professor Tobias
- List of participants
- Foreword
- Address
- Keynote address
- Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
- The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
- Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
- Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
- Tools and brains: which came first?
- Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
- Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
- Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
- The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
- Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
- Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
- Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
- Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
- The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
- Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins 276
- An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
- From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
- New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
- Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
- Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson's Poort at Klasies River
- Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
- Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
- From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
- Chronology of the Howieson's Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
- Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
- Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
- Personal names index
- Subject index
Summary
Abstract
Over the past twelve years Blombos Cave has yielded a well-preserved sample of faunal and cultural material in Middle Stone Age (MSA) levels. The MSA phases are separated from the < 2 thousand years (Ka) Later Stone Age (LSA) levels by a blanketing aeolian dune sand 5–50 cm thick dated at c. 70 Ka by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). Careful examination of sediments and anthropogenically derived deposits within individual levels over the past four years has allowed us to sub-divide the MSA levels into three major phases, namely (1) a Still Bay, or M1, phase dated at c. 75 Ka by OSL and thermoluminescence, (2) a middle M2 phase provisionally dated by OSL at c. 78 Ka, (3) a lower M3 phase provisionally dated by OSL at > 100 Ka. Artefacts unusual in a Middle Stone Age context have been recovered from all three phases. These include marine shell beads, bifacial ‘laurel-leaf’ points, bone tools, engraved bone and engraved ochre in M1, and bone tools in M2. The likely symbolic significance of these finds suggests levels of cognitively modern behaviour not previously associated with Middle Stone Age people. Key issues discussed in this paper are the possibility of admixture of older and younger deposits at Blombos Cave and whether some MSA artefacts derive from the LSA levels (also see Klein, 2000: 29).
Résumé
Au cours des douze dernières années, la grotte de Blombos a livré des restes fauniques et culturels bien conservés dans les niveaux du Middle Stone Age (MSA). Les couches du MSA sont séparées de celles du Later Stone Age (LSA), datés de moins de 2 Ka, par une dune éolienne épaisse de 5 à 50cm, datée aux alentours de 70 Ka par luminescence stimulée optiquement (OSL). Un examen détaillé du dépôt a permis au cours des quatre dernières années de subdiviser les couches du MSA en trois phases principales, soit (1) une phase Still Bay ou M1 datée par OSL et thermoluminescence à environ 75 Ka, (2) une phase moyenne M2 datée provisoirement par OSL à environ 78 Ka, (3) une phase ancienne M3 provisoirement datée par OSL à plus de 100 Ka.
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- Information
- From Tools to SymbolsFrom Early Hominids to Modern Humans, pp. 441 - 458Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2005